A Lot of Work to Do
by Alelou
Summary: A post-"Bound" 'missing missing scene' as a little holiday treat. TnT, of course.


A Lot of Work to Do

DISCLAIMER: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount, not me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A reader at Triaxian Silk requested some, ahem, _detail _about certain parts of recent missing scenes, and since she and others had been so generous about reviewing, I was happy to oblige with a smutty 'missing missing scene' just in time for Christmas. This is the cleaned-up T-rated version; the longer explicit version can be found in the Decon Chamber at Triaxian Silk. It takes place after the end of missing scene for "Bound" and expands on what you might have read in Act One of "Darkness Intruding." Happy holidays!

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><p>Yes, Trip decided, he had T'Pol exactly where he wanted her. She was so desperate for him to stay that she'd actually kissed him right there in the corridor. He'd intentionally kept things light. "Guess we got a lot of work to do," he'd quipped, using her once-maddening line back at her, and headed off to do some of that work – the part he knew how to do, anyway, which was taking care of <em>Enterprise.<em>

Unfortunately, the hardest work they faced had nothing to do with warp engines, and exactly how to go about it was a puzzle. While Trip had never been averse to just diving in and seeing what worked – which was arguably how he'd gotten in this mess in the first place - he would have welcomed a good source of information. He longed for an owner's manual, as it were, for mating bonds with Vulcans. But he'd already checked, and none existed, or at least none in translation, and he wasn't desperate enough yet to get Hoshi on the case. In theory, of course, the captain with his new knowledge of the Vulcan _katra_ might have more help to offer, but precisely because he _was _captain, Trip didn't want to go that route unless he had to.

He had actually found one resource in the database that had looked promising – an ancient piece of classic Vulcan literature had come up, translated as _Bondage _(which perhaps explained the number of hits on it), but its story of warring clans and rival mates had been rendered unreadable by the author's penchant for including every conceivable detail about his characters, their setting, the time period, reflections about what everything might mean, and so on and so on and so on. It was like reading a filing cabinet full of field notes from the most obsessive-compulsive anthropologist of all time. And this text the Vulcans considered a classic. It finally made sense to Trip that Vulcan had never developed a cinematic tradition.

This left him to fall back on his own instincts of what to do with women who were Vulcan and had a mating bond with him and were named T'Pol. This wasn't exactly encouraging, since his instincts in the matter had apparently been wrong for months.

On the other hand, he still had her exactly where he wanted her.

x x x

T'Pol was pleased to see Commander Tucker join her and Captain Archer in the captain's mess for dinner that night for the first time since his return to _Enterprise_, although his unaccustomed presence had an unfortunate affect on her appetite. She sat there across the table from him, quietly thrumming with excitement that her mate was sitting so nearby, apparently well disposed towards her again. She was most peculiarly hyper-conscious of her own body and every movement she made … and of _his _body and all of _his _movements, too. Of course, as a Vulcan she trusted that she was betraying none of this. Indeed, at regular intervals, she forced herself to look at Captain Archer and attend to the conversation.

Nor, she was certain, was she in any way betraying just how intently she wished to know what Commander Tucker had meant by "this thing between us isn't that big of a deal" and "guess we got a lot of work to do" and whether either of those sentiments was likely to interfere in any way with the prompt revival of their physical relationship.

Trip chatted easily with the captain about the repairs and Archer's hopes for the upcoming conference. It would be quite irrational to be irked that Trip seemed less affected by her presence than she was by his, and so she tamped down her irritation by carefully applying logic to the matter.

"Are you all right, T'Pol?" Trip eventually asked. "You aren't eating very much."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's too bad," he said, but the look he gave her was not at all sympathetic. He reached across the table to pick up a cherry tomato from her salad and popped it into his mouth. She stared at him as he worked the tomato around his mouth as if he was savoring it before finally biting and swallowing it. "Yummy," he said, and smiled at her.

Archer coughed and appeared to be attempting to hide his mouth from her when she looked over at him. She did not see what he found so amusing, but that was nothing new. "You know," Archer said, "I've got to get back to work on the conference plans, so I'll say good night." He coughed again – she made a note to herself to suggest a visit to Phlox if _that_ continued - and stood up. "It's nice to have you back, Trip."

"Thanks, Cap'n," Trip said, grinning broadly. "It's nice to be back." He turned his gaze from the captain to her as he even said it.

"What are your plans for the evening?" she asked him, once the door had closed behind the captain.

He leaned back, folding his arms and stared appraisingly at her. "That depends."

"On?"

"Whether you want to continue our conversation from earlier," he said. "Of course, if that's not convenient right now…"

"I'm available."

He smiled. "So … your quarters or mine?"

It was a good sign that he wanted to do this in quarters, surely? "Mine are closer."

He stood up and threw his napkin down on the table. "Lead the way."

She thought about informing him that, as her mate, Vulcan tradition dictated that _he _should lead the way. But that would require time they could use to actually _get_ there, and she wasn't entirely certain he would welcome any reference to Vulcan tradition just now. So she led the way.

x x x

Trip followed T'Pol to her quarters, enjoying the view from behind in a way he hadn't allowed himself in months. Inside the door she stopped and turned to him and Trip wondered if she was actually trembling with need or if that was just him – it might be a perception thing, after all - but then she was kissing him and he was kissing her, reclaiming all the territory her open mouth offered up to his demanding tongue, and any trembling faded into the wonderful sensation of everything falling back into place.

She pulled off her boots and he did the same to his own even as she was reaching forward to zip down his uniform and pulling off his black undershirt and his blue t-shirt. Their eyes met and he smiled and kissed her again quickly before either of them could say anything that might derail this.

He worked down the zipper on her uniform even as he kissed her and then they were each hurriedly peeling off what little remained of each other's clothing. She felt behind her and fell back onto her bed, pulling him with her, and oh she was so hot! She smelled just the way she always smelled, that wonderful T'Pol smell, only more so because he hadn't been this close in so long. He pressed his nose into the little hollow at the base of her neck and inhaled.

Home at last.

x x x

"That's more like it," he breathed, awhile later.

T'Pol sighed. "Agreed."

He turned until they were spooned together. Part of him thought: _don't_ _talk, you idiot. That's when you get into trouble._ But he couldn't keep silent. "You know that thing I said about this thing between us not being such a big deal?"

"Yes," she said, with a hint of an edge in her voice.

"I lied."

He felt her tense up. But they had to talk sometime, didn't they? He caressed her arm reassuringly. "So we're bonded."

"Apparently." She still sounded wary.

"That could explain a hell of a lot, actually." He was greatly relieved to have an official reason for the crazy white space encounters, and the way he knew when she walked into a room before he saw her, and the strange certainty he sometimes had about what she was really thinking or feeling even when it was completely at odds with what she was telling him.

Because he wasn't the only one who had lied.

"So, T'Pol?"

"Yes?" She turned so she could look at him.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me about any of this before I transferred off the damned ship?"

Her eyes shifted away. "I did not think you would welcome the information."

He frowned, uncomfortably conscious that he'd given her some reason to think that. Still, she could have saved them so much time and trouble. "Don't you think I deserved to know something that important?"

"I saw no reason to think that any bond we had formed would be as strong or long-lasting for you as it was for me. You're Human. You could contemplate leaving. You not only contemplated it, you _did _leave." The pain of that was plainly evident in her voice.

"You needed to have a little more faith in me than that."

"I tried. You said it wasn't about me."

He winced. Could all of this have been avoided if he'd just been a little less protective of his own hurt feelings? "I'm sorry. I was an ass."

Her eyebrow went up and he could just see her sorting out that mental image. He smiled. "You've got to give imperfect Humans like me more than one chance to get it right. Okay? Don't give up on me so easily next time."

"Just how imperfect do you expect to be?" The question was tart, but he sensed real concern.

He pulled her closer. "Enough to drive you crazy, but not enough to make you wish I was gone."

She said nothing for a moment. Then she said softly, "I could never wish that."

That was what all true lovers believed, of course, until time and trouble took their toll. But Trip remembered what Jon had told him about Vulcans, and swallowed. He might just be the only Human male in the universe whose lover literally had no choice in the matter.

He would perhaps feel a little more terrified by that responsibility if he wasn't so certain that he had no more choice about it than she did. "Well, me neither. You're well and truly stuck with me now."

She looked at him with what he recognized as pleasure if only because he could feel the glow of it as if it were radiating right through her skin into his. Apparently that was exactly what she'd needed to hear.

Maybe his instincts weren't really so bad after all.

THE END


End file.
